Belinda came out of the darkness, with her cheeks flushed and her eyelids drooping. Her heart was beating so fast as to make it quite impossible to speak just yet, or to sing either. But she sat down before the piano, and, with hands that trembled in spite of herself, began to play one of her pet sonatas.
Unhappily, Beethoven requires precision of touch in the pianist who is bold enough to seek to interpret him; and upon this occasion I am compelled to admit that Miss Lawford's fingering was eccentric, not to say ridiculous,––in common parlance, she made a mess of it; and just as she was going to break down, friendly Clara Davenant cried out,––
"That won't do, Belinda! We want you to sing, not to play. You are trying to cheat us. We would rather have one of Moore's melodies than all Beethoven's sonatas."
So Miss Lawford, still blushing, with her eyelids still drooping, played Sir John Stevenson's simple symphony, and in a fresh swelling voice, that filled the room with melody, began:
"Oh, the days are gone when beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love!"
And Paul Marchmont, sitting at the other end of the room turning over Miss Davenant's scrap–book, looked up through his auburn lashes, and smiled at the beaming face of the singer. He felt that he had improved the occasion.
"I am not afraid of Miss Lawford now," he thought to himself.
This candid, fervent girl was only another piece in the schemer's game of chess; and he saw a way of making her useful in the attainment of that great end which, in the strange simplicity of cunning, he believed to be the one purpose of every man's life,––Self–Aggrandisement.
It never for a moment entered into his mind that Edward Arundel was any more real than he was himself. There can be no perfect comprehension where there is no sympathy. Paul believed that Edward had tried to become master of Mary Marchmont's heritage; and had failed; and was angry because of his failure. He believed this passionate young man to be a schemer like himself; only a little more impetuous and blundering in his manner of going to work.